SIEMENS

The catacombs near the Bahnhof Zoo train station in Berlin, Germany, are a place where you might expect to find a phantom, or perhaps creatures that would look good painted in acrylic colors on a canvas. Indeed, you would think artistic inspiration is a given in this winding labyrinth — a place where you spend more time ducking down than walking upright. Despite this fact, the approximately 4,000 students at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) have never seen the tunnels in the basement of their facility. Instead, the world below is the realm of Robert Müller, head of the UdK’s Technical Services Department. Müller, who has a degree in architecture from the UdK, is not searching for inspiration in the 19th century vaults, however. Instead, he’s on the hunt for money — or more specifically possibilities for saving it.
The old building, with its extensive heating system and old technical equipment, most of which dates back to the 1960s, had long been a disgrace in terms of energy efficiency. Several years ago, however, modern heat control valves and pumps were installed in the basement. Müller gestures toward one of the big wheels that can be used to shut down the heat manually. "This is where we paved the way for more efficient energy consumption — and the less energy we use, the cheaper it is to operate the building," he says.
Since 2004, thanks to an energy performance contracting model, Siemens has been helping the University save energy and money. "Our budget has gotten tighter and tighter over the last ten years, and when we started looking at ways to save money, our high energy costs attracted attention," Müller reports.
The Berliner Energieagentur energy company then issued a European-wide call for tenders for modernizing the UdK’s nine properties, ultimately selecting Siemens as the UdK’s partner. "Siemens simply offered the best value for money," says Kerstin Kallmann from Berliner Energieagentur. The great thing about the deal for the university is that it doesn’t have to pay a cent for the project. "Even if we had wanted to modernize the school completely by ourselves, we wouldn’t have been able to do so because of the high cost," says Müller. Instead, Siemens invested around €1 million in state-of-the-art control technology and energy-saving equipment. The money saved as a result is being divided between the University and Siemens over a ten-year period, so the more energy is saved, the more each side profits. And thanks to Siemens’ help, the UdK also received a Green Building Certificate from the European Union.

Old but Efficient. Christel Meyer, an energy engineer at Siemens Building Technologies, is helping the UdK also boost efficiency in its old buildings. "A lot of energy has been saved through the installation of new heating circuits," she says. "In the past, for example, the heat used to stay on the whole weekend in one school building just to keep the custodian’s apartment warm. Another one of our measures involved equipping all radiators with thermostats." While such measures didn’t exactly turn the complex into a state-of-the-art facility, they have led to more intelligent use of the existing properties, and the investment required has been relatively low.
”The university’s contract with Siemens guarantees it a minimum reduction in annual energy consumption of 27 %. That translates into savings of around €236,000 per year. A total of 17 % of these savings — or €41,000 per year — remains in the university’s coffers. But the amount can increase if savings turn out to be even more extensive. There’s also a positive environmental effect, of course, as the project with Siemens results in annual energy savings of 4,680 MWh for the 52,000 m² of floor space. This corresponds to approximately 1,100 t less CO₂ emissions.
Siemens assists colleges and other educational institutions not only by providing them with building management solutions, however. "In the future, the winners in the international competition to recruit the best professors and students will be those universities that actively pursue such talented individuals and support them through the entire academic learning cycle from first contact to graduation," says Joachim Brünner, who is responsible for Corporate Account Management Research & Education at Siemens.
Here, Siemens offers support with solutions for administration process digitization, such as those it provided to Poland’s four largest universities. The annual market volume for the research and education sector is around €320 billion, of which at least €17 billion is generated in areas such as building energy modernization and IT solutions — i.e. fields in which Siemens technology can create added value. What’s more, the market is growing at an annual rate of more than 6 %.
Energy efficiency optimization measures are very attractive for colleges with tight budgets, because of their positive financial effect. Siemens is an experienced partner in this field, having implemented efficiency enhancement projects in over 6,500 buildings worldwide to date. Guaranteed savings here total nearly €2 billion, while CO₂ emissions are being reduced by well over 700,000 tons a year.
Siemens’ involvement with the UdK goes back a long way. On one occasion, Meyer took a walk with Müller on the grounds to discuss the university’s energy-efficient future. However, on encountering the giant fans in the concert hall, which was under renovation at the time, their conversation turned to the past. "Siemens installed these in the 1950s," Müller said. "They’re still functioning perfectly and they’re not big energy users either." So, even back then, there was good reason to opt for a Siemens solution. Some partnerships last for years; this one has already lasted half a century.